Free Speech (in the UK) an Oxymoron?

[redback911]

Ok, slightly contentious I suppose but is anyone else slightly perturbed by the UK's attitude to "Free Speech"? The jailing of various individuals over the last couple of years for social media comments, made me question if free speech actually exists in the UK. This year the courts have jailed:

Fabrice Muamba: Racist Twitter user jailed for 56 days
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17515992

April Jones: Matthew Woods jailed for Facebook posts for 12 weeks
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-19...

I am in no way justifying what these individuals said, but did they really deserved to be jailed? It smacks of hypocrisy when I see/hear MPs bemoan the lack of democracy and freedom of expression in other countries, yet in the UK we seem barely better than those we try to impose democracy on.

Edited by redback911 on Tuesday 9th October 12:23

[redback911]

Ozzie Osmond said:

The expression is "freedom of speech"

Not "freedom to behave like an utter tw@t".

Both are bigoted idiots, no doubt. However it seems you can be a bigoted idiot as long as you do not do it on the Internet.